Bud Nip

"Don't worry about avoiding temptation.  As you grow older, it will avoid you."  Winston Churchill

Because some of us no longer have to worry about avoiding temptation, there are other things we might want to concentrate on avoiding.  Such as, incidental additives to our foods.  This was brought to light when a young girl, Elise, did an experiment for school to find out how long it takes a sweet potato to grow a vine.  Unlike sweet potatoes of yesteryear, the sweet potatoes now sold in most grocery stores don't grow vines, as Elise learned as she waited for a vine to appear.  That's because sweet potatoes are treated with the chemical, chlorpropham, more commonly known as Bud Nip.  It keeps taters and other veggies from sprouting once they're picked and sent to market.  That's the good news.

The other news is that Bud Nip is also sprayed on crops of alfalfa, lima and snap beans, blueberries, cane berries, carrots, cranberries, ladino clover (ideal for livestock pasture), garlic, seed grass, onions, spinach, sugar beets, tomatoes, safflower, soy beans, gladioli and woody nursery stock.  Whew! It's sprayed on crops that don't sprout, such as blueberries, because Bud Nip also controls grass weeds while the crops are growing.

More news is that Bud Nip is moderately toxic and may cause irritation of the eyes or skin.  But that's just a maybe.  When laboratory animals are exposed to chlorpropham there seem to be symptoms of poisoning, such as listlessness, in-coordination, nose bleeds, protruding eyes, bloody tears, difficulty in breathing, prostration, inability to urinate, high fevers, and death.  When autopsies are done on the animals there is inflammation of the stomach and intestinal lining, congestion of the brain, lungs and other organs, as well as degenerative changes in the kidneys and liver.  Talk about a reason to take a second look at a chemical that's sprayed on crops consumed by humans!

But there is a way to keep away from ingesting Bud Nip.  It's good old organic produce that you can purchase in most large grocery stores or grow your own self.  For more information you can Google Bud Nip and watch Elise's presentation on You Tube.  So far over 450,000 people have watched it.  Possibly, a number of these people might decide that organic food isn't that expensive after all.

Loveya
The Mom